Hi all... I was just wondering WHY is the world in such a mess. War and strife everywhere in one form or another, even in our own homes, companies, political parties, religious organizations everywhere.
And i asked, "WHY, God?" Answer, "Not my doing. Human doing. Everyone is trying to play God instead of being God that is love expressed." Here's an example of the media playing God... Marina Mahathir's _incomplete_ article on No Cheer for Muslim Women at http://thestar.com.my/columnists/story.asp?file=/columnists/2006/3/10/musings/13565323&sec=Musings Her last two paragraphs that were censored as seen at http://forum.lowyat.net/lofiversion/index.php/t262706.html with Marina's personal note : In this country, our leaders claim to stand for all citizens. Our Prime Minister is the Prime Minister of all Malaysians, our Ministers work for all Malaysians in their respective fields. There are two exceptions to this. The Minister for Islamic Affairs is obviously only for Muslims; even though some of the things he does affect others. While the Minister for Women purports to work for all Malaysian women, even though not all Malaysian women benefit from that work. Perhaps we should consolidate the apartheid of women in this country by having a Ministry for Non-Muslim Women which works to ensure that Non-Muslim women enjoy the benefits of the Convention for the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, a UN document which Malaysia signed and is legally bound to implement, and a Ministry for Muslim Women which works to gag and bind Muslim women more and more each day for the sake of political expediency under the guise of religion. Today is International Women's Day. Unfortunately only about 40% of the women in this country can celebrate. The rest can only look at their Non-Muslim sisters in despair and envy. Anyone has Marina Mahathir's personal email address? I'm still trying to get her latest article that was _completely_ censored this time round. Love and God bless pat -- Pat Lu Chief Imagination Officer RAYMA Sdn Bhd http://www.rayma.com.my Event Creator | Knowledge Bank | Mindshare Surgeon | Web Architect M: +6012.210.4898 | T: +603.7804.4666 / 777 / 888 | F: +603.7804.4484 + n o t h i n g ' s i m p o s s i b l e ! + ------------------------------------------------------- CALLING ALL MALAYSIANS: Make this Your Personal Pledge to achieve Vision 2020 Please read and sign the pledge VISION 2020 IS MY VISION at http://www.petitiononline.com/my2020/ Pahlawan Volunteers will be sending this to the PM on Merdeka Day Please circulate this announcement as widely as possible. Thank you. ------------------------------------------------------- On 6/19/06, Gina wrote: This appeared on March 10th. Hope this is the one :) No cheer for Muslim women By MARINA MAHATHIR In 1948, one of humankind's most despicable ideas, apartheid, was made into law in South Africa where racial discrimination was institutionalised. Race laws touched every aspect of social life, including a prohibition of marriage between non-whites and whites, and the sanctioning of "white-only" jobs. Although there were 19 million blacks and only 4.5 million whites in South Africa, the majority population were forced to be second-class citizens in their homeland, banished to reserves and needing passports to travel outside them, even within their own country. It was only in 1990 that apartheid began to crumble and South Africans of all colours were finally free to live as equals in every way. With the end of that racist system, people may be forgiven for thinking that apartheid does not exist anymore. While few countries practise any formal systems of discrimination, nevertheless you can find many forms of discrimination everywhere. In many cases, it is women who are discriminated against. In our country, there is an insidious growing form of apartheid among Malaysian women, that between Muslim and non-Muslim women. We are unique in that we actively legally discriminate against women who are arguably the majority in this country, Muslim women. Non-Muslim Malaysian women have benefited from more progressive laws over the years while the opposite has happened for Muslim women. For instance, since the Law Reform (Marriage and Divorce) Act 1976, polygamy among non-Muslims was banned. Previously men could have as many wives as they wanted under customary laws. Men's ability to unilaterally pronounce divorce on their wives was abolished and, in its place, divorce happens by mutual consent or upon petition by either spouse in an equal process where the grounds are intolerable adultery, unreasonable behaviour, desertion of not less than two years, and living separately for not less than two years. Compare that to the lot of Muslim women abandoned but not divorced by their husbands. Other progressive reforms in the civil family law in the late 1990s were amendments to the Guardianship Act and the Distribution Act. The Guardianship of Infants Act 1961 was amended to provide for equal guardianship for both father and mother, rather than the previous provision where only the father was the primary guardian of the children. In contrast, the Islamic Family Law still provides for the father as the sole primary guardian of his children although the mother is now allowed to sign certain forms for her children under an administrative directive. The Distribution Act 1958 was also amended to provide for equal inheritance for widows and widowers, and also granted children the right to inherit from their mothers as well as from their fathers. Under the newly proposed amendments to the Islamic Family Law, the use of gender-neutral language on the issue of matrimonial property is discriminatory on Muslim women when other provisions in the IFL are not gender-neutral. Muslim men may still contract polygamous marriages, may unilaterally divorce their wives for the most trivial of reasons and are entitled to double shares of inheritance. These differences between the lot of Muslim women and non-Muslim women beg the question: do we have two categories of citizenship in Malaysia, whereby most female citizens have less rights than others? As non-Muslim women catch up with women in the rest of the world, Muslim women here are only going backwards. We should also note that only in Malaysia are Muslim women regressing; in every other Muslim country in the world, women have been gaining rights, not losing them. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Great things are happening at Yahoo! Groups. 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